With this year’s provincial budget, the United Conservative Party revealed their plan to spend more on our province’s healthcare and education sectors, directly affecting the city and NAIT.
The UCP revealed its last provincial budget before the upcoming election in spring last Tuesday. The budget announced that Alberta’s revenues reached $70.7 billion, and its spending reached $68.3 billion. The UCP government has managed to secure a $2.4 billion surplus.
In addition to the education and healthcare sectors, other highlighted parts of the budget include:
- Hospitals
- Roads
- Transit Systems
- Municipal Infrastructure Systems
- Agricultural
- Natural Resources
For Edmonton, the UCP government has given the city an increased budget to improve the city’s transit systems, hospitals and roads. The budget also includes renovating pre-existing buildings like the Citadel Theatre and creating new buildings like schools and hospitals.
With all of this directly affecting the city of Edmonton, the Mayor of Edmonton, Amarjeet Sohi, is excited to receive this support from the government. “We deserve the support that is necessary to build a great capital city and we look forward to that conversation with the parties,” he said at the announcement of the budget.
Institutions like NAIT, MacEwan University and the University of Alberta plan to use the allocated funding to improve their campuses and provide new programs, buildings and support systems.
Although MacEwan University and the University of Alberta have revealed their plans with the budget, NAIT has not announced their plans.
NAITSA VP External, Jody Gylander, stated that this new budget may end up helping students in the long run. “Well, costs are going up, and they always seem to be going up, but I think there’s a little bit of a reprieve knowing that tuition will be at least forecasted and stabilized and families can save and kinda know what they’re getting into without any surprise five, six, seven per cent hikes like we’ve seen in the past.”
